


Kingdom Come

by Destina



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Futurefic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 06:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17116487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: Every war is the same.





	Kingdom Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sef1029 (SEF)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEF/gifts).



> sef1029 gave me a prompt: Merlin, dreaming/daydreaming about what Arthur would do with modern technology. Um, this...took a turn.

Just before dawn, Merlin rose from his crouch outside Arthur’s tent and slipped inside. Many of the soldiers were awake and had been for hours. Some milled about in the muddy snow, casting furtive glances at Merlin, but never daring to approach. 

It was always like this on the eve of the biggest battles; it had been so ever since Camlann. There was no way to predict the moments when Arthur would be recalled from Avalon, but every time it happened, they acquired their reputations in short order -- enough for the men to fear Merlin, and worship Arthur. Even with Arthur’s leadership, however, they had yet to end one of these wars in such a way that the next would be averted. There had been so many wars. So very many. The dead from the last so-called great war cried out to Merlin, and the dead from all other wars on this ground in the centuries past. 

Men craved war, so much so that they had managed to murder most of the good and pure things on the earth in its service, magic most of all. Merlin's power was greater than ever, but his magic yearned for lasting peace. Arthur at least could return to the tor when it was his time once again. Merlin would not be fortunate; it was a reward he yearned for, but had yet to achieve. 

He had thought once – during Arthur's fifth resurrection, or perhaps the eighth, the details were beginning to blur – that there would come a time where magic and science were one, and oh, what Arthur might do then, with all that power to harness and technology brought to bear. Merlin would be by his side, as always; the might of war and of magic, blended to press for peace. Arthur had embraced new weapons over the centuries, had learned their techniques effortlessly. He had marshaled his men to use them, and had taken towns and cities, continents. Someday, he might take worlds. Merlin had seen all this, and much more. 

It was Arthur’s curse -- the prophecy Merlin had tried so very hard to prevent coming to fruition. The Once and Future King. All the past, and all the future, wreathed ‘round, an unbroken circle. 

But soon something unthinkable would happen, if Merlin’s visions were correct. The night sky would be made day, and day would become night as science and magic fused to produce the heart of a burning star, scorching the earth beneath. 

This was no power Arthur could control. It was in the hands of men, and men would never wield it well. Arthur, for all his goodness, was but a man. 

Merlin would consider this problem, when this life of Arthur’s was over; before magic left the world, he must find a way to destroy those bits of science which posed an endless threat to humanity. 

How this had become his burden, he could not say. It was so much simpler when his duty was to one man, and one man alone. 

He looked at Arthur sleeping there, without mail to protect him. He wore simple battle fatigues, and his golden hair was a mess above a dirty, weary face. Merlin saw him as he was, and as he had been. As he would be. Such a powerful surge of love tore through him, he could barely breathe, and he sank to his knees beside the cot. 

“Arthur,” he said, and when Arthur’s eyes snapped open, Merlin knew he heard everything in the saying of his name: _my lord. My king._

Time carved no sigils on Arthur’s face, no signs of its provenance. Yet he was changed, and so was Merlin, who knew they saw this change in one another even if no other could tell. There was ruination beneath the ageless skin; scars, and deep burns, and the dying echoes of despair they could never give voice. 

“Is it time, then?” 

“Nearly so,” Merlin said. 

Arthur turned his head, listening to the not so distant mortars, to artillery fire; it was as though he looked through the canvas, through the fabric of time, out into the past, much as Merlin might look to the future. 

Now, their ritual, the words Merlin dreaded; Arthur always asked his questions the same way.

“Would you destroy them for me?” 

“Yes,” Merlin answered, as Arthur’s hand gripped the back of his neck. 

Softly: “Would you kill them on my command?”

“No,” Merlin said. He would always be Arthur’s Merlin, but he was first and always himself, the stubborn, contrary warlock who must do what was right, and never what he was told, unless those two things aligned in his estimation. 

It was an answer they both needed affirmed, to a question they must perpetually ask. It reminded them they were but flawed men with singular purpose, no matter their powers. 

“Tell me what this is,” Arthur had asked him on the last evening of his first life, as he held Merlin close. There were times Merlin had felt he was holding only a wisp of smoke, something he'd imagined into being, much like he might conjure a dream. “Tell me.” 

“This is Camelot,” Merlin had answered, kissing him softly. “This is the moment of your glory.”

And for a moment, it had been, though the loss came quickly, and was too great to bear. It was always too great to bear – so great, Merlin’s heart felt torn in two, a wound that never healed – and yet it would be borne. 

Every time, in the last moments before the end, Arthur would spread his body over Merlin’s, his power flowing into Merlin, and out into the corners and trenches of Camelot, giving everything he was, everything he would someday be. Protecting Merlin, forfeiting his life to the land, until the next hour of Camelot’s need. 

Britain was his kingdom, come at last, and lost again, for there would always be a new war, another hour of need. They came closer and closer together, and Merlin feared there might come a time when there was no space between. No rest. No way to win. 

In the tent, in the close dark, Merlin opened his arms, and whispered, “This day is almost done, my lord,” his breath so soft on Arthur’s face, like a warning they were powerless to heed. Arthur's sword glinted in the corner, ready to be taken up.

Arthur fell, and will fall again; he would always fall in the end, with Merlin left behind to raise him from death's grasp. The darkness beat against them, and the sound of it was Mordred’s voice, Mordred’s soul, wrapped around them like a clenched fist, pressing and squeezing so their breath came in fitful gasps. Merlin imagined Arthur with sword in hand, striking true to bone. He held that image of victory close, with Arthur’s body pressed against him. 

“Call the dragon,” Arthur said, his lips pressed to Merlin’s throat as they shed their clothes one last time. Merlin summoned the magic he had perfected over the years, his lips moving in a silent invocation. It would not take long. Aithusa was always near when time grew short. 

Merlin’s fingernails raked down Arthur’s back, scoring his skin and breaking it open to the darkness as Arthur moved inside him, commanding, “Tell me -- the place where we will go, together, when all is done.”

“Avalon,” Merlin whispered. 

“Yes,” Arthur whispered in return, “Merlin," and then there was no more reason to be afraid.


End file.
